Food For All

Wow! The Sikh Golden Temple feeds nearly 75,000 people for free on a daily basis. I don’t know too much about the Sikh religion but I am already liking it.

Nearly 500 years ago, a Sikh guru living in the Indian subcontinent introduced a revolutionary idea when it comes to the consumption of food. The idea was simple enough: a place should exist where everyone, regardless of religion or social status, could sit on the ground together as equals and eat the same food. The philosophy behind this free meal was a radical departure from the prevailing norms, where caste hierarchies decided what you ate and with whom you ate it.

“The Sikh gurus worked very intentionally to challenge social distinctions in various forms,” said Simran Jeet Singh, the senior religion fellow for the Sikh Coalition and a PhD candidate at Columbia University.